Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald

Book: Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

Author: Sarah Macdonald

Rating: 4 out of 5 religions

First Paragraph: I have a dreadful long-term memory. I only remember two traumatic events of my childhood - my brother's near-death by drowning and my own near-death by humiliation when I was rescued by a life-guard while attempting my first lap of the butterfly stroke in the local pool. I vaguely remember truth or dare kisses in the back of a bus, aged about twelve, dancing to "My Sharona" at thirteen, behaving like an absolute arsehole in my adolescence and having a hideous hippie phase involving dreadlocks and tie-dye when I was at college."

Review: This book was not what I thought it would be - twenty-something girl roaming the land, finding everything beautiful, showing the hidden wonders of India. Instead, the land and people were disgusting, nothing like the beautiful India that you see on tv or in Bollywood films, and even the different religions had their moments. And the narrator? She was stuck there while her husband, a journalist, was covering stories. By the end of the book, I was quite taken aback when she said that in their first nine months of marriage, she and her husband had only spent a few weeks together. Weeks?! And so, with that in mind, what would you do while stuck in a country with few of the modern necessities (like air conditioning and bug spray?)? Would you sit at home or would you get out there and see what the country had to offer? India is a land of many religions; instead of Disneyland and SeaWorld, they have lands of the gurus and reincarnated gods - Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. It was the land of flagellation. The constant bombardment of noise, heat and pollution left the narrator with one place to turn. By the end I wanted to know which religion was the best. Which one the author would choose? None of them, of course, and for the same reason - too many people. There is no perfect religion because there is no perfect people. By the end of the book, she visits a small paradise on earth and even it has it's own problems.

I was surprised in the end when the author brought up the terrorist attacks. Amidst all of the internal struggle and noise pollution, it was a nice jolt back into reality. And with all of the searching she had done, I wondered, was it worth it? Is there a final peace? Or are we just gonna keep on growing?